Alabama gunman kills bus driver, seizes boy

MIDLAND CITY, Ala. — Police SWAT teams and hostage negotiators were locked in a standoff Wednesday with a gunman authorities say intercepted a school bus, killed the driver, snatched a 6-year-old boy and retreated into a bunker at his home with the kindergartener.

The gunman, identified by neighbors as Jimmy Lee Dykes, a 65-year-old retired truck driver, was known as a menacing figure who once beat a dog to death with a lead pipe, threatened to shoot children for setting foot on his property and patrolled his yard at night with a flashlight and a shotgun.

He had been scheduled to appear in court Wednesday morning to answer charges he shot at his neighbors in a dispute last month over a speed bump.

The standoff dragged on through the night and into the afternoon Wednesday after the gunman boarded a stopped school bus filled with children in the small town of Midland City, population 2,300, on Tuesday afternoon, authorities said.

Sheriff Wally Olsen said the man shot the bus driver when he refused to hand over a 6-year-old child. The gunman then took the kindergartener away.

Dykes was believed to be holed up with the boy in an underground bunker of the sort used to take shelter from a tornado.

"As far as we know there is no relation at all. He just wanted a child for a hostage situation," said Michael Senn, a church pastor who helped comfort the traumatized children after the attack.

The bus driver, Charles Albert Poland Jr., 66, was hailed by locals as a hero who gave his life to protect 21 students.

3 comments on "Alabama gunman kills bus driver, seizes boy"

MIDLAND CITY, Ala. (AP) — A standoff in rural Alabama went into a second full day as police surrounded an underground bunker where authorities said a retired truck driver was holding a 5-year-old hostage he grabbed off a school bus after shooting the driver dead.

A normally quiet dirt road was teeming with activity Thursday around the siege that began late Tuesday. More than a dozen police cars and trucks, a fire truck, a helicopter, officers from multiple agencies, media and at least one ambulance crowded the stretch where the dead-end residential road branches off a U.S. highway near Midland City, population 2,300. A staging area for law enforcement was lit by bright lights overnight.

The boy being held was watching TV and getting medication sent from home, according to state Rep. Steve Clouse, who met with authorities and visited the boy's family. Clouse said the bunker had food and electricity.

The shelter is about 4 feet underground and has about 6-by-8-feet of floor space, said Police Chief James Arrington from the adjacent town of Pinckard, whose city limits border the neighborhood. Negotiators have been talking to the man through a 4-inch-wide PVC ventilation pipe.

"He will have to give up sooner or later because (authorities) are not leaving," he said. "It's pretty small, but he's been known to stay in there eight days."

Arrington thought the man had been sleeping some, because he told negotiators one night that he was through talking and was going to sleep.

The gunman, identified by neighbors as Jimmy Lee Dykes, 65, was known around the neighborhood as a menacing figure who once beat a dog to death with a lead pipe, threatened to shoot children for setting foot on his property and patrolled his yard at night with a flashlight and a shotgun.

The chief confirmed that Dykes held anti-government views, as described by multiple neighbors.

"He's against the government — starting with Obama on down." He said the FBI, which was leading the standoff, had reason to believe that the bus driver's shooting was a hate crime.

"He doesn't like law enforcement or the government telling him what to do," Arrington said. "He's just a loner."

Authorities say the gunman boarded a stopped school bus Tuesday afternoon and demanded two boys between 6 and 8 years old. When the driver tried to block his way, the gunman shot him several times and took a 5-year-old boy off the bus.

"As far as we know there is no relation at all. He just wanted a child for a hostage situation," said Michael Senn, a pastor who helped comfort other traumatized children after the attack.

Dykes had been scheduled to appear in court Wednesday to face a charge of menacing some neighbors with a gun as they drove by his house weeks ago.

The bus driver, Charles Albert Poland Jr., 66, was hailed by locals as a hero who gave his life to protect the 21 students aboard the bus. Authorities say most of the students scrambled to the back of the bus when the gunman boarded.

Neighbors described a number of run-ins with Dykes in the time since he moved to this small town near the Georgia and Florida borders, in a region known for peanut farming. Dykes had been scheduled to appear in court to answer charges he shot at his neighbors in a dispute last month over a speed bump.

In that dispute, neighbor Claudia Davis said he yelled and fired shots at her, her son and her baby grandson over damage Dykes claimed their pickup truck did to a makeshift speed bump in the dirt road. No one was hurt.

Mike and Patricia Smith, who live across the street from Dykes and whose two children were on the bus, said their youngsters had a run-in with him about 10 months ago.

"My bulldogs got loose and went over there," Patricia Smith said. "The children went to get them. He threatened to shoot them if they came back."

Another neighbor, Ronda Wilbur, said Dykes beat her 120-pound dog with a lead pipe for coming onto his side of the dirt road. The dog died a week later.

"He said his only regret was he didn't beat him to death all the way," Wilbur said. "If a man can kill a dog, and beat it with a lead pipe and brag about it, it's nothing until it's going to be people."

Court records showed Dykes was arrested in Florida in 1995 for improper exhibition of a weapon, but the misdemeanor was dismissed. The circumstances of the arrest were not detailed in his criminal record. He was also arrested for marijuana possession in 2000.

MIDLAND CITY, Ala. – The standoff between police and a gunman accused of holding a 5-year-old boy hostage in an underground bunker dragged into a fourth day on Friday, as authorities sought to continue delicate conversations with the man through a pipe and worked to safely end the tense situation.

The gunman shot a school bus driver to death Tuesday, grabbed the child off the bus and slipped into an underground bunker on his property in rural Alabama, police said. There were signs the standoff could go on for some time: the shelter has electricity, food, TV, and police have delivered the boy's medication through a ventilation pipe leading to the bunker.

Hostage negotiators have used the pipe to talk to the gunman, identified by neighbors as Jimmy Lee Dykes, but investigators have been tightlipped about their conversations.

Former FBI hostage negotiator Clint Van Zandt said authorities at the scene shouldn't rush to resolve the standoff as long as they are confident that the boy is unharmed. He cautioned against any drastic measures, such as cutting the electricity or putting sleep gas inside the bunker because it could agitate Dykes.

The negotiator should try to ease Dykes' anxieties over what will happen when the standoff ends, and refer to both the boy and Dykes by their first names to humanize them.

"I want to give him a reason to come out," Van Zandt said, "and my reason is, `You didn't mean that to happen. It was unintentional. It could have happened to anyone. It was an accident. People have accidents, Jimmy Lee. It's not that big a thing. You and I can work that out."'

The shelter was about 4 feet underground, with about 6-by-8 feet of floor space and the PVC pipe that negotiators were speaking through, said James Arrington, police chief of the neighboring town of Pinckard.

"He will have to give up sooner or later because (authorities) are not leaving," Arrington said. "It's pretty small, but he's been known to stay in there eight days."

Republican Rep. Steve Clouse, who represents the Midland City area, said he visited the boy's mother Thursday and that she is "hanging on by a thread."

Clouse said the mother told him that the boy has Asperger's syndrome, an autism-like disorder, as well as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD. Police have been delivering medication to him through the pipe, he added.

The red clay road leading to the bunker teemed Friday with more than a dozen police cars and trucks, a fire truck, a helicopter, officers from multiple agencies and news media near Midland City, population 2,300.

Police vehicles have come and gone steadily for hours from the command post, a small church taken over for that use.

Early Friday, activity picked up when a team in military-style uniforms, many toting weapons, got out of a big van in the pre-dawn chill and moved into a staging area. One appeared to be dog handler.

Dykes was known around the neighborhood as a menacing figure who neighbors said once beat a dog to death with a lead pipe, threatened to shoot children for setting foot on his property and patrolled his yard at night with a flashlight and a firearm.

The chief confirmed that Dykes held anti-government views, as described by multiple neighbors: "He's against the government -- starting with Obama on down."

No motive has been discussed by investigators, but the police chief said the FBI had evidence suggesting it could be considered a hate crime. Federal authorities have not released any details about the standoff or the investigation. The mayor said he hasn't seen anything tying together Dykes' anti-government views and the allegations against him.

Authorities said the gunman boarded a stopped school bus filled with children on Tuesday afternoon and demanded two boys between 6 and 8 years old. When the driver tried to block his way, the gunman shot him several times and took the 5-year-old boy.

The bus driver, Charles Albert Poland Jr., 66, was hailed by locals as a hero.

Dykes had been scheduled to appear in court Wednesday to answer charges he shot at his neighbors in a dispute last month over a speed bump. Neighbor Claudia Davis said he yelled and fired shots at her, her son and her baby grandson over damage Dykes claimed their pickup truck did to a makeshift speed bump in the dirt road. No one was hurt.

The son, James Davis Jr., believes Tuesday's shooting was connected to the court date. "I believe he thought I was going to be in court and he was going to get more charges than the menacing, which he deserved, and he had a bunch of stuff to hide and that's why he did it."

MOBILE, Alabama (Reuters) - A 5-year-old boy was being held hostage for a seventh straight day in an underground bunker in Alabama on Monday, and authorities remained tight-lipped about talks to free him from the gunman who shot and killed his school bus driver.

The boy, who is due to celebrate his birthday on Wednesday, was taken from the school bus and locked away in a home-made shelter on the property of Jimmy Lee Dykes, 65, a Vietnam veteran and retired trucker at the center of the hostage drama in a rural corner of southeast Alabama.

"We maintain an open line of communication with Mr. Dykes," said FBI spokesman Jason Pack. "Someone is there to talk with him whenever he wants to talk."

Dykes has been identified by the local sheriff's department as the man who last Tuesday fatally shot bus driver Charles Albert Poland, 66, as he tried to protect the more than 20 children on the bus during their ride home from school.

Authorities have identified the boy only as Ethan, who suffers from Asperger's Syndrome and attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder. There has been no indication that Ethan has been physically harmed by Dykes, whom the local sheriff's office has thanked for allowing the boy to receive medication, coloring books and toys.

The drama has come amid heightened concerns about gun violence and school safety across America after the December shooting deaths of 20 children and six adults at a Connecticut elementary school.

Mourners attending Poland's funeral on Sunday at the Ozark City Center praised him as a hero for seeking to protect the children, who watched in horror as he was gunned down.

Most schools in the area remained closed on Monday, despite earlier assurances that they would reopen.

All Dale County Schools will be open on Tuesday, according to Donny Bynum, superintendent of Dale County Schools. The system includes the Midland City Elementary School where Ethan attends kindergarten.

According to neighbors, the notoriously reclusive Dykes moved into the Midland City area about two years ago and was often seen patrolling the property where he lived in a trailer with a gun and flashlight at night.

He had been due to for a bench trial last Wednesday after his recent arrest on a menacing charge involving one of his neighbors.

Pack and other law enforcement officials declined to comment on Monday when asked about the status of talks to resolve the hostage situation peacefully. There have also declined to confirm media reports that the talks are all taking place through a PVC pipe, leading from a dirt road on Dykes' property into the bunker.

In a statement on Sunday, the FBI said Dykes "continues to make the environment as comfortable as possible for the child."

Leave a Comment

From the author of the Crime Magazine article comes a historical novel about the Black Dahlia's time in Hollywood. Now available from Amazon, in Kindle Store.

Site Links

About

With the purpose of writing about true crime in an authoritative, fact-based manner, veteran journalists J. J. Maloney and J. Patrick O’Connor launched Crime Magazine in November of 1998. Their goal was to cover all aspects of true crime: Read More